


Similitude

by murderousfiligree



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Thinly veiled coming out allegory, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-12 16:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15343839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderousfiligree/pseuds/murderousfiligree
Summary: Loki’s female form bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain Goddess of Death.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time it happens she is twenty-six years old.  
  
Examining the mirror with narrowed green eyes, the face bears an expression that is not annoyance. Not quite. The crumpled brow, shining with a faint gleam of sweat, suggests deep concentration—but the full, open mouth is redolent of rapture. It is the look of an artist, the same look worn by the likes of Michelangelo as he stepped back from the sculpture of David with his chisel in hand.

 _It’s almost perfect_ , the look seems to say. _Almost. But not yet._

The mirror, wreathed in gold filigree, is unblemished by scratches; it is almost preternaturally clean, lacking so much as a single particle of dust on its surface. A dandelion seed drifts through the open window, across the ceiling’s gold-plated tiles, across the rich emerald curtains, across the high bookshelf with cabalistic gold inscriptions gleaming on leatherbound spines. The breeze quits as the seed reaches the center of the room, where it falls in a languid spiral to the polished face of the mirror. It vanishes on contact, leaving the surface immaculate once more.

Loki Odinson pays it no mind. She lets her hand slide over the smooth curve of her hip, an unfamiliar shape sheathed in familiar black leather. Her legs are fine; she knows that much. The trouble is in the face. Perhaps the curve of the jaw?

The face in the mirror begins to change. The bone beneath the ear becomes sharper, a barely perceptible shift to any but the girl standing so close to the mirror that, were it not enchanted, would be clouded with her breath.

 _Better_ , she thinks. _Much better._

Though still a child by the Asgardian clock, Loki has shifted into more shapes than she can recall—men, women, snakes, wolves—but this time is different. This is not an imitation, like the time she borrowed Sif’s face to vex Thor (a story for another day, perhaps). No, this is _creation_.

The girl in the mirror is _her_ , every bit as much as the male form she wears in Odin’s court. Or at least, it will be very soon. Loki bites her lip, tracing the reflection’s jaw with her index finger. It still isn’t perfect, but it is so _close_!

Wind soughs through the curtains. Sunlight stirs in its folds. The girl turns her cheek into the breeze, forcing herself to look away from her own nascent visage. _Relax_ , she commands herself. _It’s no wonder you can’t see what’s wrong with the face when you’ve got it twisted like that._  

When her brow finally smooths and her lips fall into a neutral line, her eyes leap back to the mirror with a quickness that belies her serene expression.

“There!” The pointed tip of the nose shortens beneath her triumphant gaze and the thing is done at last. Loki, daughter of Odin, considers her reflection with open relief. “Yes,” she whispers. “Here I am. Here I am.”

She has twenty seconds to appreciate her handiwork before Odin opens the door.

* * *

She could have changed back in time, had she wanted to. Though not the master sorcerer she will grow to be in the coming millennia, Loki is nothing if not quick with her spells. But part of her needs Odin to see her like this; to conceal such a fundamental part of herself might suggest she is ashamed, or worse—that she fears his judgement.

Neither ashamed nor afraid, she turns to greet the man she calls father.

“Loki, your brother wishes to—” the man stops short. His eyes grow wide in an expression Loki at first mistakes for rage.

“Does my new form trouble you, father?” she ventures. The high voice feels smooth and exotic in her throat, like a delicacy from some distant kingdom. “Why do you look at me so?”

“Loki,” the man says. The name sounds like a revelation. “You’re Loki.”

“Of course I’m Loki,” she snaps. “You called me by name when I slithered in the garden as an adder. You picked me from a flock of doves when I flew among them.” Unable to keep the hurt out of her voice, her tone drops to a low rasp. “Would you not recognize me like this?”

It is only when Odin steadies himself against the wall with a trembling hand that she realizes he is not angry, was never angry. She did not recognize the look for what it was because she has never seen it before on her father’s face.

Odin Allfather, King of Asgard, protector of the Nine Realms, is _afraid_.

Or was, at any rate—she can see it fading even now—but terror’s mark remains. His pupils are too wide, his face too pale. For a moment she glimpses the old man he will become, and she is afraid as well.

“Father, what is it?”

Odin takes a deep breath and lets his hand fall to his side; the sweating palm leaves a mark on the wall. “Why have you chosen this form, Loki?”  
  
“It pleases me,” she says simply. “It feels as natural as the form I was born with—sometimes more so.”

“I see.” Odin appears to study the marbled floor, avoiding Loki’s gaze as she sometimes avoids his when she has committed some minor offense. “What would you do if I asked you never to use this form in my presence?”  
  
Loki folds her arms over her chest. “I would demand to know why.”

He nods. “A fair demand. But I cannot meet it.” Odin looks up to meet her gaze, his eyes blue and watery and strange. “Does it please you to hurt me, my son?”  
  
“Daughter,” she says. “I would have you call me daughter in this form.”

Odin sighs—a great, heaving sigh that seems to age him a century. “Very well. Does it please you to hurt me, my daughter?”

“Never.”

“Then I must ask you never to assume this form in my presence, and to accept that I cannot tell you the cause.”

“Cannot?” she asks. “Or will not?”

Odin almost smiles, but the look is gone in an instant. “Will not, of course. The tale is a long and painful one.”  
  
Loki casts a long look at the mirror behind her; when he looks at Odin again he wears his familiar form. “One day I will hear this tale.”

“Perhaps you will,” Odin says, but there is a reluctance in his tone that makes Loki wonder. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments on the first chapter <3\. Here is the conclusion.

The second time it happens she is two hundred and thirty-three years old.

The crisp click of her heels resonates in the gold-plated hall, which has grown silent despite the sizeable crowd. The banquet table has been cleared and vanished to the room below the throne, where it will remain until Yuletide. Torchlight sharpens the shadows on her face.

When she first opened the great doors, it seemed every soul in the room had been dancing; now, sensing the miasma of rage rising from the sorceress like smoke, the people of Asgard are still. They part before her, revealing a black marble path to the throne, where her father sits watching her approach, his expression unreadable.

“You will tell me why this form vexes you or I will wear it whenever I please.” She stands at the foot of the throne, arms crossed, black-painted lips curled into a sneer.

“Loki,” Odin says. “Can this wait until the fall festivities are concluded?” His voice is smooth and even, but she hears the undercurrent of ice: _You are making a scene._

“No,” she replies. “I’m afraid it cannot. This conversation is a couple centuries overdue, Allfather.” She fingers one of the gold discs threaded in her hair, indifferent to the hundreds of eyes boring into her fur cloak. “You see, I’ve grown weary of shifting every time I catch wind of your approach. Thor and his lot don’t quite get it. They seem to think you’re ashamed of me.” She flashes a mirthless smile over her shoulder where Thor stands, jaw muscles working beneath his beard. “Well, I can hardly blame them. It’s hard to explain, really, when you never deigned to give me a reason this form makes you so damned uncomfortable in the first place.”

“Brother—”  
  
The torches sputter to embers. Loki wheels around, face contorted in rage. “Do I look like a brother to you?” she screams. The whole crowd seems to shrink from her; in the back a trickle of people have begun slipping out the great doors.

Thor steps forward, chagrined. “Sister,” he begins again. “Volstagg was only teasing—it is his way. We all know father is proud of you, no matter the guise you choose to wear.”

Ignoring this, Loki turns to face Odin again. “You were so concerned with your own discomfort you never paused to consider the discomfort our... _arrangement_ would cause me. Hiding half of myself, like this form is an obscenity… I will not do it any longer. Not without cause.” She places one foot on the stairs leading up to the throne. “You once said I would hear your tale. I would hear it now, father.”

Odin considers her for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line. Frigga places a hand on his shoulder, glancing between them with a knowing glint in her eye.  
  
“No,” he says at last.  
  
“No?” Loki echoes, voice wrought with disbelief.

“I was wrong to ever ask you to conceal this form from me,” Odin continues. “I will not pretend to understand your divided nature; I don’t, and I never will. But I can see the pain I have thoughtlessly inflicted upon you. You demand my tale, or the freedom to wear this form in my presence. I grant you the latter.” He rises from the throne, lifting the staff above his head to draw the attention of his people.

“The sorceress who stands before you is my daughter.” His voice fills the great hall despite its size, amplified by the same magic which keeps the torches burning. “She is also my son. No matter the form you choose to take,” he looks at her with a benevolence she can’t find it in her heart to resent, “you are my child, my second born, and you are loved. I have wronged you and I ask your forgiveness, Loki.”

The crowd, drawing close again, watches her with renewed interest. Loki swallows hard, a curious sheen in her eyes (certainly not tears—she would not cry in front of Thor, or that detestable Volstagg, damn it all). “I forgive you, father,” she says.

In eight hundred years, give or take, Odin will reveal a secret about Loki’s heritage, a secret she will never forgive him for keeping; but at the moment all is well between them, and Loki allows herself a smile.

“Now,” Odin says, extending his hand to Loki’s, palm up. “I believe there is a celebration going on?”

Taking the cue, the court musicians draw their bows across the strings of their instruments. Loki takes her father’s hand. They descend into the crowd amid thunderous applause, pausing at the center of the floor; there they begin to dance, as thousands of Asgardian fathers and daughters have danced before them. The subsequent soiree is almost enough to make Loki forget the tale Odin so deftly eluded telling.

Almost.

* * *

Frigga is removing her earrings with practiced care when she spots his reflection in her vanity. It has been four days since the banquet, and her youngest child wears his male form dressed in green linen and black leather. His expression is decidedly troubled.

“Loki,” she says warmly. “Do come in.”  
  
“Thank you, Mother.” He gestures to the ottoman at the foot of the bed. “May I sit?”

“Of course.”

Loki sits. Odin and Thor are not due back from their hunting trip for a day yet, but he senses the Allfather’s presence regardless; nowhere in the palace is completely free of Odin’s touch, but here in his bedchamber it is almost overwhelmingly strong. Loki threads his fingers in his lap, resisting the absurd urge to glance over his shoulder.

“I suspect you know why I have come.”

“Perceptive as always, my son,” she says, pivoting on the stool to face him. “You want to know why Odin fears your female half. Or why he did fear her, the first time he saw her.”

“Yes,” he says, green eyes unnaturally bright in the crepuscular light. “You know the tale, do you not?”

Frigga’s gaze slides to the open window. A dove flits by, white feathers glowing red against the setting sun. “All too well,” she says. “It is an ugly tale, one I often wish I could forget. I would not burden you with it, even if I had the choice; as it is, the choice is not mine to make.” Her eyes return to his. “It is not my tale to tell, dear.”

Loki’s face falls. “What deed is so terrible even you must hide it from me? What has the Allfather done?”

She looks to the window again; her eyes suddenly remind him of Odin’s on that wretched day two centuries ago, the day he promised to hide half of himself forever. _Does it please you to hurt me, my son?_

“I pray you never find out,” she says at last. “For I feel Odin will only reveal his folly when Asgard is a hair’s breadth from ruin.”

Sensing she has said her piece on the subject, Loki leaves his mother’s chamber with a halfhearted murmur of thanks on his lips. “A hair’s breadth from ruin,” he mutters to himself. “What the in the Nine is _that_ supposed to mean?”

* * *

A millennium later, standing on a bluff in the Norwegian wilderness with his father’s remains dissolving in the wind, Loki looks into the face of his wayward sister and understands.


End file.
